For My Sake
by WolfInWonderland
Summary: Mikasa never told Eren how Armin considered suicide when thinking that they lost him, and Armin never knew how to bring it up. So when Eren hears about it from Jean of all people, he has a few things to say to Armin. "…He what?"


For My Sake

Mikasa never told Eren how Armin considered suicide when thinking that they lost him, and Armin never knew how to bring it up. So when Eren hears about it from Jean of all people, he has a few things to say to Armin. "…He what?"

**A lot of people have written about this and I thought that I needed to put my thoughts on this out there too. It's a pretty straightforward Eremin that I hope will give people the fuzzies with how much angst-fluff there is.**

For My Sake

Between finding out that Eren could turn into a titan, convincing the Military Police that he was a valuable asset to humanity instead of a threat, and the mission of taking back Wall Rose there was very little time for the three childhood friends to actually get together to reconnect. Let alone talk about the things they had seen during all of those points in time. So it was easy to forget about most of the minor things that had happened during those times if no one brought it up.

_Crash._ "…He what?"

Well, it was almost easy to forget.

It was the night after Eren's trial for heresy against humanity—again, Mikasa continually spat, but at least this time he didn't have a literal gun pointing down at him—and all of the newly graduated recruits were eating dinner at the Military Police's headquarters dining hall. Mostly because with all the new homeless taking refuge in the city there was limited spacing for anyone who could walk on their own feet, but silently because the recruits that were needed on trial for their connection to Eren were still being watched until morning and needed to stay in official sight for the time.

The crash was from Eren dropping his plate of food, causing the entirety of the hall to look at him but he couldn't care less about that. His main focus was on Jean still standing in front of him and the words he said still circling around his thoughts.

Eren clenched his fists. "He what?" he repeated.

Jean snorted, trying to look superior but really just shocked that the teen didn't know.

"Yeah. Armin was planning to kill himself. Connie told me about it."

Eren swerved to look at the buzzed cut boy and slammed his hands on the table. "What the hell happened?"

Connie shrunk in his seat feeling the eyes turn to him now. Sasha gently pat his knee with the hand not holding her serving of bread in her mouth.

"Well," he gulped, trying to look past Eren's shoulder, "Mikasa was there too so I thought she would have told you already. When…when we thought you were dead, Armin…" Connie paused, finding the words hard to say since he did consider Armin his friend, "…Armin had given Mikasa his fuel tank and was going to kill himself with his last blade so the titans wouldn't eat him."

Had it been anyone else, Eren would have been furious that one of his comrades thought that giving into the titans was a better option than fighting, but it wasn't anyone else. Anyone else could have been set straight by a well placed punch to the gut, but it was _Armin_. The same Armin who had been his first friend. The same Armin who had stuck through all the crazy and messed up shit that Eren had to deal with and still stayed by his side until they came out—wounded—but alive.

And the thought that that almost wasn't true, that for a single moment Armin could have made a different choice and not come out of that battle with him, made the hair on the back of Eren's neck stand up and tears close to springing into his eyes.

As it was he had to already hold back from running out to find his blond friend right now if not for the slight hope he still had that it was a joke and Mikasa would clear it up.

Eren slowly walked to where Mikasa was still sitting from waiting for him to join her in eating but the closer he got the more her hair covered her eyes.

Eren felt his heart drop. "Mikasa…?"

She didn't respond. "Mikasa, if this is a joke I need to know now—"

"He had a blade," she interrupted, hands fiddling on her lap as she brought up the memories that—even if she didn't show it—still hurt her greatly. "He said that he didn't want to be eaten by titans so to leave him with at least one blade."

Her hands tightened as her head lowered. "I took it away and threw it off the building…He looked really heartbroken."

That was all it took to make Eren go flying out the hall's doors, not bothering to look back at any of the eyes that followed his exit.

_~Eremin~Eremin~Eremin~_

It took close to half an hour searching the massive building as people continued stopping him to ask stupid questions. _Where are you going? You know you can't leave the building. You'll be a traitor if you set one foot outside these walls!_

Like he cared. Eren wasn't trying to run away and if he gave one shit to clearing his name with the idiotic grunts of the Military Police he would have said so. But because he didn't, Eren barely gave them a hurried nod before knocking them over in his effort to sprint past them.

Finally hearing that Armin was seen heading back to his room with a handful of books from the Police's library Eren worked his way back to the dorms of the not suspects. Since his own room was in the basement of the place it took him some time figuring out which corridor was the right one and then a yell as Eren did not have the patience to try out every room in the wing.

Armin was quick to answer his call.

"Eren? What are you doing here? I thought you were eating downstairs with everyone—"

Eren pushed the blond boy back inside the door and closed it once they were both inside. The brunette leaned against the wood for, all the time he spent running around trying to find him, Eren had no idea what to say now that he had.

Armin leaned closer to the taller teen, trying to look into the covered eyes while reaching to cup the side of his cheek. "Eren…what's wrong?"

Eren grabbed the other's hand quickly, holding it in place as he looked into Armin's eyes with his own tear glossed green ones. Armin gasped.

"Eren, what—"

"They told me…" he said, voice wavering as he forced himself to say it himself, "they told me that you were going to kill yourself."

Armin stiffened and Eren let out a pained whine. "Why? Why would you leave me?"

There was a moment of silence as the two friends just looked at each other, eyes trying to convey what they were thinking but the other was too distracted to understand. Finally Armin sighed, rubbing his still trapped fingers over the skin of Eren's cheek.

"I thought you were dead," he whispered, immediately deciding that Eren deserved to know the truth instead of trying to cover it up with a halfhearted lie. "You were the one who left me first."

Eren shook his head. "I did that to protect you! I wanted you to live and see the ocean even if we couldn't do it together!"

"And you think I could live with that?!" Armin yelled, his ability to stay calm dissolving quickly. "You think I could live with knowing that I killed my best friend?"

"But it wouldn't have been your fault!"

With a strength neither of them was quite ready for, Eren pushed Armin backwards, making them both fall onto the bed. Armin fell first, making Eren lay on top of him and knocking the breath out of him when he landed. As a silent apology the brunette lifted himself off slightly and stared down at the boy beneath him.

Having grown up together there were plenty of times the two had to share the same bed when they slept. Sometimes they woke up huddled together with Armin curled into Eren's chest with the older boy's arms wrapped tightly around him. Other times they woke up with Eren hugging Armin to him as the younger was turned around in a peaceful sleep. But no matter how they woke up they were always holding each other, leaving Eren with a distinct understanding of how Armin's body felt when they were together.

But this was something entirely different from what he had known.

Armin's face from this angle was slightly more rounded, giving him the appearance of an innocent that had no place being in the harshness of this world. That innocence reminded Eren of the promise he had made when he was young, his promise to protect that purity as well as he could for as long as he could so long as he was still alive. And even when he wasn't alive he would want Armin to keep going without him, no matter what the situation was or what he thought he had done.

Copying Armin's initial reaction to sooth him, Eren placed his hand on the blonde's cheek and gently rubbed the soft skin.

"It wouldn't have been you're fault," he repeated with more conviction in his voice to try and get that one statement through to that ingenious mind of his. "And even if it was I would still want you to go on and reach the ocean. At least that way we when met again you could tell me what it's like."

Armin's breath had long since hitched to the point of almost suffocation, but he still tried smiling at the titan shifter. He let Eren see his smile before he shook his head.

"But without you that dream would mean nothing." Both their tones had quieted down considerably but Armin's was beginning to shake to the point of stutter if he whispered too low. "And you don't k-know what it's like seeing your best friend be taken a-away in front of your eyes and know that i-it was y-your fault he d-died."

Armin shed a few tears looking up to see Eren's reaction.

And Eren thought back to the emotions he felt when Jean first told him that Armin almost died. That he had almost lost his best friend and closest person to him in this messed up, titan riddled world. And he understood exactly what Armin was talking about.

His feeling of immense relief that Armin was still here, still in his arms and within his touch, was so great in that moment of understanding that he leaned down to reach the blonde's head and gave him a kiss.

Even with his unpreparedness Eren still expected some type of shock from the smaller teen, stiffness or a tensing or something. So when Armin kissed him back with as much intensity as Eren leaned in with, Eren was the one being shocked.

Armin reached up to grab Eren behind his neck and keep him in place, the emotions from remembering such an awful time fueling his passion in his return kiss.

Finally when the two couldn't hold on any longer and needed to breathe they broke apart slowly, their mouths panting against each others and Eren pushed forward to place open mouthed kisses moving from Armin's lips to the side of his mouth to the bottom of his chin.

Armin leaned back to offer more room to the brunette and released little hitching moans each time Eren made contact with his skin.

Unknown to the blond though, each kiss Eren left was a renewed promise to keep the boy in his arms away from any more danger either from the outside world or his own mind.

_Please let me protect him on all the missions he will have to be on. Please let me take the blame for him sticking up for me. Please don't ever let him think such awful thoughts again._

Eren looked up from his place on Armin's throat, pausing in his wishes for the other to stay free from harm. He waited until Armin looked back at him.

"If you had killed yourself that day, if you had died to save Mikasa or Connie it would have been my fault."

Armin opened his mouth to protest but Eren silenced him with another kiss.

"You would have died because I was dead and I would have forever believed that it was my fault you followed me."

Armin's eyes were as glassy as Eren's had been when he first came in the room and Eren kissed away the one tear that fell down the side of his face.

"I didn't know what to do without you here. I never want to see the ocean without you, Eren."

Eren let out a shaking laugh in trying to keep his tears in. He almost had lost this boy without ever realizing how much he meant to him.

"And I don't want to get there with anyone else but you either."

He kissed him again.

"So for my sake, please never think about killing yourself ever again."

Armin leaned up to give a kiss of his own.

"And for my sake, don't ever let yourself be killed again."

They continued on like that, asking little things from the other to make sure they didn't leave anything out until the words died down and they were just communicating through their connected lips.

They both knew that Eren would most likely get into danger again just as they both knew Armin would act according to the situation to best get Eren out of it, but just for that one moment when they were lying together they made the best promises they could for the time.

And, for both their sakes, those promises would just have to be enough.

**End**


End file.
